Teacher wins appeal over firing after criticizing trans ideology at Christian school

A Christian teacher won an appeal in the U.K. after being fired for criticizing plans to teach transgender ideology by her Christian school.

Teacher Katie Higgs was fired from her Church of England school in 2019 after posting to Facebook her objections to her school’s plan to teach from a book that promotes transgenderism, said the Christian Post.

She wasn’t alone in her criticism, either.

A petition in the U.K. gathered over 115,000 signatures and was debated in Parliament, according to the Christian Post.

An initial request to overturn the firing was denied, but a judge ordered the tribunal to take a fresh look at the case after an appeal, said the BBC.  

Higgs said that she is frustrated by the delays in getting the case decided properly. 

“From the beginning, despite the many attempts by the school to suggest otherwise, this has always been about my Christian beliefs and me being discriminated against for expressing them in my own time,” Higgs said after the appeal was announced, reported the BBC.  

In her Facebook post, Higgs said that the school was attempting to brainwash children into accepting gay and transgender ideology as mainstream.  

“Children will be taught that all relationships are equally valid and ‘normal’, so that same-sex marriage is exactly the same as traditional marriage, and that gender is a matter of choice, not biology, so that it’s up to them what sex they are,” said Higgs on Facebook, according to Fox News. 

Her post also asked family and friends to sign the petition opposing transgender sex education in primary schools in the U.K., said the Christian Post.  

The delay in deciding the case, in part, was due to accusations that several of the panel members, who made the original ruling upholding Higgs termination, were biased in favor of transgender ideology, said Christian Concern, a Christian legal organization in the U.K.     

Two of the panel members were removed by the president of the tribunal after an investigation into the allegations of bias in favor of “transgenderism and extreme sex education,” said the legal center.  

One of the panel members is a former Assistant General Secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), a U.K. teachers’ union, which took a strong stand on the issue, opposing Higgs.  

“Many unions express views on matters of current issues, but NEU took a particular interest in the issues in question. Difficult to see how Mr Morris as Assistant General Secretary can be dissociated from those views in the eyes of an impartial observer,” said the president of the tribunal in removing the union boss. 

Currently the government in the U.K. is undertaking a review of school policies on sex education, even as the tribunal mulls a reversal of the Higgs case.  

The Church of England is the official church in the U.K. and is considered an organ of government. 

“I am pleased that the courts have overturned the previous judgment, but I am frustrated by the further delays to receiving justice,” Higgs said in a statement, according to the Christian Post. 

“I was, and still am, appalled by the sexual ideology that was being introduced to my son’s Church of England primary school. … Since I lost the job I loved, there has been so many disturbing revelations about transgender ideology in schools and children being taught inappropriate sex education. I feel so justified and vindicated for sharing and expressing the concerns that I did,” she added.